Route “Roads of War: Demyansk — Lychkovo”

Demyansk District saw fierce fighting between the North-Western Front and Nazi forces. On 8-9 September 1941, Demyansk and most of the district were occupied, but by mid-September Soviet troops stopped the enemy’s advance toward Moscow. During a year of fighting in the “Demyansk Pocket”, the enemy lost more than 90 thousand people. After 17 months of occupation, Demyansk was liberated on 21 February 1943; more than 147 thousand Soviet soldiers gave their lives for its liberation. The route includes the military halls of the Demyansk District Centre for History and Culture; the memorial to soldiers of the North-Western Front on the site of a former Soviet POW camp; the paratroopers’ monument; the Soldier Monument, modelled on Nikolai Sosnovsky, who covered an enemy machine-gun embrasure with his body; and the military hall and monument to Leningrad children killed at Lychkovo station in 1941.